CASE STUDY: COOLERADO CORPORATION Coolerado uses Weather Analytics climate data to demonstrate to clients the energy-efficiency of their air conditioners in places around the globe.
02 Overview Coolerado offers an alternative to conventional air conditioners through unique energy-efficient technology that has won multiple industry awards including R&D Magazine s 100 Award and Popular Science s Best of What s New in Green Technology. Coolerado prides itself on producing the most efficient air conditioners made and estimates its evaporative air conditioners use 50 to 90 percent less energy than traditional compressor based air conditioners providing a significant cost savings and environmentally friendly alternative to customers. Most air conditioners are condenser-based and use a lot of energy and chemicals converting warm air to cold during the refrigeration cycle. Coolerado air conditioners rely on a patented, proprietary indirect evaporative cooling technology that doesn t add moisture to the conditioned air that is delivered to the space to be cooled. Ambient temperature and humidity affect the coolers ability to evaporate water and create a cooling effect. For example, in high humidity areas, the water does not evaporate as quickly, but in low humidity areas, the water evaporates very quickly, which means that it is able to cool buildings faster. Coolerado units work best in climates with high dry bulb temperatures, low wet bulb temperatures and a high number of Cooling Degree Days. The energy-efficiency of convential air conditioning systems, such as direct expansion or vapor compression systems, goes down as the ambient dry bulb temperatures increase. On the other hand, the energy efficiency of Coolerado units increases with higher dry bulb temperatures. Coolerado sells innovative evaporative cooling units that lower the temperature in buildings through the evaporation of water. Because of the way that the evaporative air conditioning unit works, the size of the unit is based on the amount of water it needs to process in the area it is being installed. Coolerado modular configuration - efficiently cooling a city buildling
Challenge Coolerado serves a multitude of industries including grocery stores, manufacturers, schools, hospitals, restaurants and data centers. The company has distributors and customers all over the globe from Arizona to Abu Dhabi. Because its air conditioners rely on the ability to evaporate water at varying speeds, Coolerado requires a good grasp on the typical climate conditions at a particular location in order to know what size unit is required to cool a building in that area. Our technology is highly dependent on the local climate conditions around the world where the air conditioners are going to be used, said Steve Clark, a Coolerado Sales Applications Engineer who oversees the design of its heating and air conditioning systems. We can t go out and just talk to our customers and say well this is a good idea without showing them some kind of objective data analysis needed to demonstrate what the cost savings will be. Gathering this climate data from public sources like NOAA and ASHRAE proved to be a problematic and painstaking endeavor. Most of the data available is for the United States, with only a few international locations. It was difficult to get all the cities we needed, especially if we wanted to drill down and get specific sites or altitudes, stated Steve. Local climate data can make a big difference especially when you are in a long coastal environment like Los Angeles. You may be able to find public data sources for an airport, but if you go inland 20 or 30 miles, you can get drastically different climate conditions such as temperature and humidity. We needed to be able to show that difference to be able to drill down into specific sites both in the U.S. and internationally. We sell more of our units outside of the U.S. than we do domestically in markets such as Mexico, the Middle East, South Africa and Australia. Typically, climate data for cities located in the U.S. is more publicly available than for international locations the location of the majority of our customers. However, Weather Analytics is able to go above and beyond those public sources providing us with detailed climate data for any location in the world. Our technology is highly dependent on the climate conditions around the world where the air conditioners are going to be used. - Steve Clark, Coolerado Sales Applications Engineer
04 Solution Coolerado must determine the number and size of air conditioning units needed for area distributors and customers in a particular location, therefore, Coolerado customer service and business development personnel require quick, online access to worldwide weather intelligence that includes variables that affect the speed of water evaporation. Our units are typically used in hot, dry climates with low wet bulb temperatures and high dry bulb temperatures and a lot of cooling degree days, said Steve. So areas like Mexico, Australia, the Middle East, and the desert in Southwestern U.S. Phoenix Arizona, Las Vegas and Southern California are all very good climates for us. Coolerado turned to Weather Analytics in order to provide them with the global climate data needed to show potential clients the dramatic difference in energy consumption and cost savings that could be found through the use of its energy-efficient evaporative cooling units. We use our in-house developed sizing tool to pull in the TMY climate data provided by Weather Analytics and run calculations needed to show what the energy savings would be for a client at their site, said Steve. Our online sizing calculator shows the annual energy consumption using traditional vapor compression air conditioning systems versus what it could be with our technology. We give the customer an idea of what the yearly water use is going to be based on the climate in their area and the amount of water needed to power the cooling system. It helps us figure out how many of our units customers will need for a particular building. Elevation is also a key element that is included in the Weather Analytics file. Weather Analytics has been a great tool to show customers the climate at their specific location. We ve done sites in Sudan in South Africa and all parts of Mexico that required difficult-to-find weather metrics at various altitudes. We use our in-house developed sizing tool to pull in the TMY climate data provided by Weather Analytics and run calculations needed to show what the energy savings would be for a client at their site. - Steve Clark Coolerado M50s - cooling a manufacturing facility in Mexico
Solution cont d Weather Analytics uses 15 years of historical data to create Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) files for Coolerado that are delivered through a custom API allowing for automated access. These files incorporate air (dry bulb) temperature, wet bulb temperature and relative humidity, among other essential variables. Constructed using Department of Energy-specified techniques, Weather Analytics offers TMY files in five separate formats for over 650,000 worldwide locations designed to work with all of the major modeling systems for building site selection, modeling and simulation, and energy analysis. Publicly available sources outside of Weather Analytics as previously experienced by Coolerado only offer TMY files for a few thousand sites, primarily located around airports in the United States and in Europe. additional energy usage analysis. In addition, Coolerado imports Weather Analytics data automatically into Hands Down Software via a custom-implemented API. This psychrometric-based software is used by building engineers who wish to graph the hourly climate data points on psychrometric charts (see below). We ve trained our dealers and resellers on how to use our tools so they just log in, set the model up, and pull the Weather Analytics climate data for the location they re looking for, said Steve. Another thing we can do in our sizing tools is what if scenarios. We can say well what if this facility was located in Phoenix, what would be the ROI there? Now, let s contrast that to the same location in Denver. So it allows us to very quickly do some what-if scenarios and comparisons. It s a pretty slick system. In addition to Coolerado s inhouse developed sizing tool, the company utilizes Climate Consultant, which was developed by UCLA, and Hands Down Software, for additional climate analysis. Climate Consultant allows them to plug in the EPW (EnergyPlus) files included in Weather Analytics TMY files for Coolerado Psychrometric Chart Using Weather Analytics Climate Data
06 Results Like most small businesses, we re somewhat resource constrained, said Ryan Smith, Marketing Manager for Coolerado. Before we had quality weather data, it took a lot of time and effort to really disseminate what climate and locations were going to work best for our clients. So just having this software really eases the burden on the limited resources we have and it allows us to get a much quicker grasp of climate information for our clients. Overall, it helps us maximize our efficiency. By providing Coolerado with the climate data they need, Weather Analytics has been able to help them show objective data analysis to building owners in order to demonstrate what the cost savings would be with their energy-efficient evaporative air conditioning systems. It gives their customers a better sense that Coolerado can help them with their cooling applications for the customer s specific site which can make a significant impact during the sales process. Coolerado can also sell to more international locations by being able to showcase the typical conditions for anywhere in the world. It gives our customers a better sense that we can help them with their cooling applications for their specific site, said Steve. If they are somewhere in Mexico in a small town or some remote area and the only publicly available data is for Mexico City that s 300 miles away, we can show what the weather data is for their particular site using Weather Analytics data. So I know that really helps us on the sales side. Having this data really eases the burden on the limited resources we have and allows us to get a much quicker grasp of climate information for our clients. - Ryan Smith, Coolerado Marketing Manager
ABOUT WEATHER ANALYTICS Weather Analytics delivers global climate intelligence by providing statistically stable, gap-free data formed by an extensive collection of historical, current and forecasted weather content, coupled with proprietary analytics and methodologies. Weather Analytics finds, assembles, cleans and formats weather data from around the world and delivers information that is directly accessible in an online database for decision support. Weather Analytics uses the aggregated data to create with proprietary analytics hundreds of weather variables for enhanced weather intelligence and risk mitigation that is delivered in user-friendly formats allowing customers to focus efforts on solving business problems versus aggregating and cleansing data from raw sources. Weather Analytics provides this weather information for each of more than 700,000 locations, which covers the entire globe. The comprehensive collection ranges from over three decades of historical climate data, to on-demand current conditions, to hourly seven-day forecasts, all available for purchase at www.weatheranalytics.com. On-Demand Weather 3 Bethesda Metro Center, Suite 508, Bethesda MD 20814 P: 888 320 7693 www.weatheranalytics.com